My cohort's story:
My character is a elven loremaster who is from minor nobility. She hasn't seen her parents in decades, as they returned home to their country while she worked for a human knightly order as their scholar/sage (explaining what the character was doing during the time up to when she joined the party at 7th level). What she didn't realize was her parents had another child after returning home. They rarely contacted each other.
Her father, a member of the elven court, is getting old and frail, and they fear he will pass soon. A member of the royal court guards was sent to find my character to act as a bodyguard on the assumption that when her father dies, she will have to return to take his place. Of course, the bodyguard ends up being her sister who had volunteered for service.
The royal guards are a religious order of the goddess of courage, and all their members are paladins, clerics, and pious templars. Some trained for guard duty or bodyguard work. She was a cleric with the war and travel domains. (a warrior cleric trained to escort her ward around the world and to get them out of harms way if need be)
What makes this more interesting to me is that the character at this point had already inadverdently caused the deaths of her dragon familiar and a hound archon. She even went to another continent to find a psion who could psychic surgery away her dragon familiar feat (she refuses to ever get another familiar because she thinks she causes pain and suffering in others). When the cleric showed up, she didn't know that it was her much younger sister, but she knew that it wouldn't be safe for the poor poor cleric. She tried all she could in character to push the cohort away, but the cleric 1) loved her sister that she had never met (only heard glowing stories about) and 2) Had a job that she was sworn to her goddess to do.
Eventually it all worked out and the wizard begrudgingly accepted the cohort. Since then they've grown inseperable.
